Traffic

December 14, 2012

Reading Ben Rooney's article this morning in the Wall St Journal about digital disruption in the education sector got me thinking. When did disruption, as a term used in business parlance / marketing / PR / technology etc, become a good thing? Not that long ago I was stopped dead in my tracks and asked why I was talking about disruption so much as it sounded like a bad thing. Digital disruption is not only being embraced right now across all industries it seems, as the WSJ article reports, but it's being sought-after and encouraged.

This is great to see. I feel like ever since I entered the technology and digital sectors in the late 1990s that digital disruption was the big important thing and those firms that could harness and take advantage of this disruption would be the winners. It's great to see reports of the more traditionally-minded sectors embracing disruption too.

The way I see it, disruption comes in waves. The waves swell and break on different industries at different times. Some surf the waves. Some get the waves break on them and suffer the mayhem of being unprepared. Some wait for the waters to calm and move in after. For me this time of disruption is hugely exciting to be part of.